It is quite obvious how you feel about the founders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now show the fruits you said must accompany this sort of foundation. Show how the fruits that grow from the lives of the majority of the followers of these corrupt men confirm your conclusions.
The Mormon Belief of Deification
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It is quite obvious how you feel about the founders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now show the fruits you said must accompany this sort of foundation. Show how the fruits that grow from the lives of the majority of the followers of these corrupt men confirm your conclusions.
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George Muller
Guest
Well I have posted many reports of the evil of these men and those around them, you ignore them all and defend that which cannot be defended. I think that is a fruit of this mormon religion, a group of people who will follow a wicked group of men, no matter what evidence is presented to them. You would be my first example, is the gospel that was delivered by the apostle Paul the standard by which we are to serve God? A simple strait forward answer would be that which an honest christain could give. If you cannot give a strait forward answer, then that shows the fruit of mormonism.
[FONT="]Sorry I missed the personal attack that the moderator edited out---guess it must be pretty hard to realize many like me have walked away from the supposed “One, True Church†you esteem so highly. I am betting my very Salvation that I believe God showed me the way out and did ponder much as to the supposed implications of leaving the Mormon Church. Not a decision I ever took lightly and in some ways, it was the hardest decision I ever made in my life. And to not "disappoint you", I will be following up with a post answering your[/FONT] response.
Paul was the most prolific writer of Scripture. He wrote 13 of the total of 26 books of the NT, and if you ascribe Hebrews to him, it is 14.
And no, there is no dichotomy between ANY of the writers of the OT or the NT; that is one of the reasons for including only 21 books other than the eyewitness accounts of Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke/Acts, John the Apostle, who wrote the Gospel of John and 1, 2, and 3 John, and John Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark as canon in the New Testament.
[FONT="]Don’t have a copy of the D&C anymore but let’s examine what Bruce McConkie says about it in his book Mormon Doctrine in which he references the D&C along with the Teachings of Joseph Smith, among other Church-recognized publications[/FONT][FONT="].[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Murderers: Murder, the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought or under such circumstances of criminality that the malice is presumed, “is a sin unto death†[1 John 5:16-17}, a sin for which there is “no forgiveness†{D&C, 42:79}, meaning that murderer can never gain salvation. He cannot join the Church by baptism: he is outside the pale of redeeming grace.†[/FONT]
[FONT="]Now that rationale has a number of problems. First, 1 John 5:16-17 is referring to the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit, not murder. Secondly, the other 1 John verse is referring to the malice in our hearts—which by the way makes a lot of people guilty of “being murderers†until they have truly found forgiveness. I am willing to bet that many sitting in Mormon Church pews each Sunday [like many in Mainline Christian Churches] who are “outside the pale of redeeming grace†according to this bizarre Mormon Doctrine which all ties into this blood atonement belief.[/FONT][FONT="]
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[FONT="]Other Christian belief systems “miss†this Belief because is simply is NOT true. This is of course referring to the chance to "continue in Exaltation" for Mormon believers and proxy baptisms for those who never got the hear the "truth?" here on earth of the One,True Church that supposedly made it all right.
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[FONT="]The question we have been debating here for a few posts prior is “does the Blood Atonement Doctrine of the Mormon Church limit Christ’s Sacrifice�--- not how it compares to other Churches. Is there a sin [no matter how rare you say it is ] that Christ's Atonement will not cover, no matter how much a person wants His Redemption?[/FONT]
[FONT="]Well, when one reads all the verses on Faith versus Works [which are put into a sense of two separate descriptive elements] by Paul and James in particular, you get a more clear picture that the important thing is to gain Faith in Jesus Christ and if that Faith is right—works will follow. Works without Faith are “dead works†and I really think the Mormon Church misses the Grace part of it all. Under Grace or under the Law. Pretty much all of the Book of Hebrews addresses this question as does the Book of Romans, among other places in the New Testament. “Scripture interprets Scripture†and if it’s unclear in one verse, many other verses will supplement the meanings of one problematic verse.[/FONT]
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I have thought about it--much, so [FONT="]let’s examine this power of the Holy Ghost a potential convert to the Mormon Church supposedly will receive. From the Teachings of Joseph Smith [pp. 198-199] we see that a potential believer will receive a “flash of testimony’ and of course he will lose that “flash†unless he is baptized and repents. The “challenge†to a potential convert to supposedly receive this flash of testimony to establish truthfulness in the Book of Mormon is listed of course in Moroni 10:4.Will not list the whole verse here but the long and short of it is that the verse really establishes that the whole Book of Mormon is true and thus "a sincere heart, real intent and having Faith in Christ will manifest the truth of it unto you†In essence, it is up to a potential convert to have those things [heart, intent and Faith] and then supposedly then Holy Spirit will tell you it is all true. Of course a new potential convert knows very little about Faith, but that's another matter. And, of course that dismisses the fact that the Holy Spirit “guides us into all Truth†[John 16:13] as in the fact that it is a process of learning to discern rather than granting some false assurance on a whole book--even the Holy Bible does not make this supposed challenge or test.. Conceivably, one could take the same “test†as to truthfulness of the New World Translation of the Bible {JW’s}, the Koran, the Communist Manifesto, even the Wicca Bible and come up with the same results as to the supposed truthfulness of the whole book, especially if one has 2 nice missionaries bearing their own testimonies how they themselves solidly believe the truthfulness of the book.. The Holy Spirit simply does not work that way and really testing the truthfulness of all things is a process[/FONT] and any one of us can be deceived when our mind is already set on what we ask for.
[FONT="]Even you will admit that you still sin, even though you are likely baptized and supposedly repented--according to LDS Church mandates. “Sin†merely crops up from time–to-time in your life as it does for all of us and really how can we say you’ve “truly repented� So, as to keeping the Commandments in 24/7 thing for the rest of our lives—it just isn’t going to happen because of our sin nature and at the end of our lives, we have lost the battle as to always keeping the Commandments and thus according to your response, we didn’t love Christ as we should have—also according to Mormon Doctrine. With all that, “total repentance†never happens because we keep breaking the "Law". We are simply lost without the continuing Grace of Christ..
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Not particularly interested in how Webster’s defines it. The point is that if one want to understand how a word in the Bible is used and what it means—you simply go to the Source [ie--- the Bible] and study the context in which a word comes forth. Also you study verses elsewhere in the Bible that use the same word. And, for deeper understandings, you go to the Greek and Hebrew meanings of the Word in a Concordance.
I have read and reread so many books on Mormon Doctrine, along with the D&C, Joseph Smith’s teachings, Brigham’s Journal of Discourses and so many other publications that I can say I've truly "tried to understand what Mormons really beleive" and have found this Deification Belief or Eternal Progression permeates in a of of Mormon Doctrines in one way or another.
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George Muller
Guest
Some of the ex-mormons I have heard have such a real understanding of Gods grace, because of the great bondage that was laid upon them by this group.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Amazing Grace to you brother.
The way I understand these scriptures is that they testify that Paul was an authentic representative of Jesus Christ in preaching His gospel. I don’t see anything in these verses that says he had any more authority or any more of the gospel than any other true apostle or prophet of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Paul is the same gospel as that of Jesus, of Peter, or of James and John. They all received authority from Jesus to preach the fullness of His gospel.
So am I just explaining differently what you believe, or do you disagree with something I have said here?
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George Muller
Guest
Well there is a reason The Holy Spirit makes clear that the true gospel was delivered through Paul. So that all doctrine could be judged by his epistles. We even see that James and Peter were rebuked by Paul, for not living according to the truth of his gospel. Now Gal. makes it clear in absolute terms that no other meassage can or should be received other than that which Paul taught. It is written in clear and evident words and is a warning to all who would dare take up the Word of God and attempt to teach others of the truth of Christ. It cannot be that another gospel would be in conflict with Pauls writtings. If any other doctrine does not come into agreement with his epistles that doctrine is to be rejected and that man is cursed by God.
Pat what you have posted sounds very much like an admission that those men (Smith, etc.) actually committed those atrocities.
I have already offered to answer these challenges one by one in a debate or separate thread. I have also given you references to sites that will answer all of these challenges.
Such challenges are off topic to this particular thread.
Again, your example here for evidence of the truth of your claim is pure circular reasoning and begs the question. (Please google “logical fallacies†if you’re not quite sure what these terms mean.) It has already been established that there are people who follow these men. The question is whether the fruits of their lives as a group or majority of individuals exemplify the teachings of Christ or do they exemplify your conclusion of what their organization was founded on, sex, money and power?
To single out the writings of Paul as the only standard would be to separate out a small portion of the Gospel of Christ from its context within the rest of the gospel, and use it to judge the rest of the context. Why would you want to do that?
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George Muller
Guest
I did not do that the Holy Spirit did it, for the reasons I have mentioned above.
I will post it again:
Well there is a reason The Holy Spirit makes clear that the true gospel was delivered through Paul. So that all doctrine could be judged by his epistles. We even see that James and Peter were rebuked by Paul, for not living according to the truth of his gospel. Now Gal. makes it clear in absolute terms that no other meassage can or should be received other than that which Paul taught. It is written in clear and evident words and is a warning to all who would dare take up the Word of God and attempt to teach others of the truth of Christ. It cannot be that another gospel would be in conflict with Pauls writtings. If any other doctrine does not come into agreement with his epistles that doctrine is to be rejected and that man is cursed by God.
The book, Mormon Doctrine, was a scholarly pursuit by an apostle. It has never been accepted by the church as official “Mormon Doctrineâ€, and for that reason he was chastised by his superiors for naming it so. Most of what is in this book is accurate, but some things are only his opinion. In light of some more recent statements by Presidents of the church, I would say that he is not completely accurate in his assessment of this issue. I know of examples in the scriptures that I would interpret as contradictory to what he says here. What is very clear is that the whole matter can only be judged by God on a case by case basis. And again, I see this as an example of someone rejecting the atonement, not a limitation of it.
If you think there are many in the different churches sitting in the pews who are included in what McConkie is referring to here, you are assuming a very exaggerated interpretation of his words. That interpretation is certainly not real Mormon doctrine.
What I was referring to was simply that other Christian belief systems limit the scope of the atonement to only those who have a chance to hear about it in this life. That cuts out most of the human race. My point was that that is limiting the atonement much more than saying it doesn’t cover hard core Murderers, even if that was an official Mormon belief.
The only reason blood atonement came up is that you used it as an example to counter my point that Mormon doctrine limits the atonement less than other Christian belief systems. So it is the discussion on this little known doctrine that has sidetracked this whole thread. Not the other way around.
Mormon doctrine agrees with everything you say here except the part that claims Mormonism misses the grace part of it all. Your limited understanding of the Mormon belief on this subject may miss the grace part of it, but my understanding of Mormon belief places it right up front. You are just exposing your ignorance of true Mormon doctrine here.
It is true that receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands as taught in Acts 8:17-18 is not generally practiced by most Christian churches. It is no secret that Mormons teach that they are the only ones who have actual authority from Jesus Christ to perform ordinances by the laying on of hands. Therefore it is true that the Gift of the Holy Ghost can only be experienced by baptized members of the church. The Gift of the Holy Ghost is the promise of His constant companionship as long as and to the degree that we accept its influence. But we believe that God can and does inspire and communicate with all of His children through the Light of Christ continually and the Holy Ghost periodically.
You show your lack of understanding of Mormon doctrine on this issue. We also believe that “we are simply lost without the continuing grace of Christâ€.
And I have studied the Bible, Old and New Testaments, through and through and have found that this idea of Deification or Eternal Progression permeates through it all in one way or another.
I can’t believe you criticize my quoting a dictionary definition because it didn’t come from the Bible when all I was doing was challenging your using another dictionary in a limited way to define the same term. Isn’t that just a little disingenuous?
First of all, I agree that Paul’s epistles contain the truth of the gospel. I have no problem with any of their teachings. But I believe you are missing something in Galatians 1:8. Paul is clearly referring to teachings he and others preached to the Galatians on some former occasion, which are not in our scriptures. Notice that he says WE, not I. So I think your theory of his special status falls apart here, as well as your assumption that he is speaking of what we have of his epistles.
You also miss the fact that Peter, being the chief apostle, warned new Christians of relying too heavily on the teachings of Paul in his epistles because they could be confusing and hard to understand and thus lead many astray (II Peter 3:15-16), even in their day.
Good observation Webb. Let me explain. Because someone becomes sealed to someone, does not mean it involves sex. That is what was involved in many of these instances. Also, if God commands someone to practice polygamy and they resist obeying, because it is so opposite from their desires, until God has to finally send a destroying angel threatening them with destruction if they don't obey, how can you say he practiced polygamy because of a lustful desire? There is much context left out when criticizing these things because the intent is to distort in order to sensationalize.
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George Muller
Guest
What? So Paul only had parts of the truth? That is a complete rejection of the scriptures. Why dont you just admit that according to your religion, you take and pick and choose, what parts of the bible you want to believe, and ignore that which conflicts with your own religion? Do you not understand the hypocricy that you are showing in the way you twist and turn, and dodge in and out of the truth of the scriptures? DO YOU REALLY THINK THIS IS FRUIT UNTO GOD?:naughty
Pr 12:13 ¶ The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips: but the just shall come out of trouble.
14 ¶ A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth: and the recompence of a man's hands shall be rendered unto him.
15 ¶ The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.
16 ¶ A fool's wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covereth shame.
17 ¶ He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit.
18 ¶ There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.
19 ¶ The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment.
Where in any of what I wrote could you have possibly come up with the idea that I believed that Paul only had parts of the truth. I have continually said the opposite. There is nothing in the Bible I do not believe or is there anything there that conflicts with my religion. Talk about twisting things. Are your arguments so weak that you have to pretend that I have said things I have not said in order to know how to argue against me?
Just because 2000 years later, we do not have everything he taught, does not mean it wasn't ever taught. Please try harder to understand what I am saying. How can you possibly expect that everything Paul ever taught is contained in a few 2000 year old letters? I showed you how Galatians makes it very clear that we cannot possibly have all he taught and that the verse you keep referring to is talking about stuff we have no record of. Why don't you address that fact?
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George Muller
Guest
This is just to ignore the rest of the epistles and to act as if we dont know what gospel Paul was speaking, is just dishonest. Another example of mormon fruit.
George, I believe you are a good man trying to do good. The concept I am trying to introduce you to is obviously too different from the traditions and assumptions you are accustomed to. I think at this point we just need to agree to disagree on this question about Paul. But just because we have different points of view on this, does not mean that either one of us dismisses the Bible or any part of it. We just see it differently. I really do appreciate learning your perspective. It is an approach to the epistles of Paul I have not been exposed to as yet. Thanks for sharing.
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George Muller
Guest
Yes, ignoring the clear and evident reading of Gods Word, is not a practice I am willing to accept or be "introduced" to.
I liken it to being released from a Prison of sorts or going from an existence where one was previously under this dark, consuming cloud and suddenly finding the sunshine. My whole Journey out of the Church started with the death of my 19 year old son where God really got my attention and yes God's Grace, the Peace that passes all understanding and so many other Blessings in God helping me to find the True Christ of the Bible are really becoming far more clear to me.